


A Dog's Life

by Severina



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Blogathon 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-28
Updated: 2007-07-28
Packaged: 2017-10-10 14:34:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Brian curses that aforementioned love thing he has for Justin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dog's Life

**Author's Note:**

> Post Season Five  
> Written for Blogathon 2007, for LJ's peggin, who requested "a sequel to Paternal Instincts"

Brian Kinney is not one to throw the word 'love' around lightly.

He doesn't love his brand new five hundred dollar Testoni loafers, or the Prada knee-length leather coat that fits him like a glove. He doesn't love what the decorator did with their house, though it's classic elegance pleases him immensely. He doesn't love the ten inch dildo he'd had specially ordered, the one that makes Justin throw his head back and squirm and pant like a dog in heat, but it comes close.

He likes all of these things, to varying degrees. But he reserves his love, unreserved and unconditional, for those that matter most.

Justin. Gus.

And Catherine.

If forced under penalty of dismemberment to admit that he loves a damn dog -- and a fucking cocker spaniel, at that -- he decides that he'd willingly take the torture and keep his mouth shut.

* * *

Justin stops painting every day at six p.m., regardless of how wrapped up he is in his current canvas. Every day, Brian brings copy and proofs home with him, working "deep into the night", at least at Kinnetik, long being a thing of the past. And every day, they have dinner together in their eat-in kitchen -- the dining room being reserved for those rare occasions when they have more than four people in the home at any one time.

It's disgustingly domestic, and Brian secretly (or not so secretly) loves every minute of it.

They throw the dishes in the dish washer and Justin returns to his painting (if he's caught up in it, he acknowledges Brian during dinner with grunts and distracted glances, until Brian takes matters into his own hands -- so to speak -- and gives him something else to think about.) Occasionally they watch a movie, or talk, or fight, or fuck. Sometimes Brian works on the proofs that he's brought home from the office.

Unless he can't find them.

"I took them out of the portfolio and put them right fucking _here_," he grouses to Justin after he's made his second complete tour of the lower floor, and the things are still nowhere to be found.

"Well, I didn't take them!" Justin snaps. Brian's interrupted him during _Lost_, and really, are the damn proofs more important than Sawyer taking his shirt off? Justin thinks not.

"If not you, then who?" Brian snaps back.

Catherine barks.

They find the mangled, shredded, dog-bitten proofs in the tangle of Catherine's bed -- the one that takes up half the floor in the guest bedroom. Brian clenches his fists and his teeth and tries to ignore the vein he feels throbbing in his neck.

"Brian," Justin warns.

Catherine wags her stubby tail and looks adorable.

"There's another set at the office," Brian finally grits out. "Maybe."

"I'm sure we can cobble something together with these," Justin says. He tries to look decisive as he bends to pick up one of the shreds. It crumbles apart in his hand.

He looks up at Brian. "I'll work all night if I have to."

"It's all right," Brian says. He stoops beside Justin, and Catherine nudges her head against his palm. He strokes her chin absently. "Stupid dog."

* * *

"The dog's got a hunk of shit hanging from her ass," Brian observes casually over the top of his morning paper.

Justin looks up in horror, bagel halfway to his mouth. "That's disgusting."

"Yes," Brian agrees. "You'd better clean it before she jumps up on the sofa."

"She doesn't jump on the sofa. She's not allowed on the sofa," Justin points out.

Brian rolls his eyes -- Catherine is on the sofa more than he is -- and returns his attention to the entertainment section. Apparently Divina Devore is back in town. He makes a mental note to call Michael later and tease the fuck out of him.

"Anyway, why should I have to clean her?" Justin asks. "She's your dog."

"Excuse me, she's your dog," Brian says, holding up a hand to stall Justin's protests, "and you are also the one who took her outside this morning. Thus, it was _your_ responsibility to ensure that she was properly hygienic before she came back into the house."

"But… that's disgusting," Justin repeats weakly. He lets his bagel drop to his plate. His appetite for food is long gone.

Sometimes Brian curses that aforementioned love thing he has for Justin.

In the end, they both clean her. Justin only gags once.

* * *

"I have to take Catherine to the vet tomorrow," Justin says one night, sleepily.

Brian, post-coital and loose-limbed, is suddenly instantly awake. "Why?" He's sure he doesn't sound worried. At least, not overtly so.

"She has fleas," Justin says.

Brian sits up, sickened. "She… can't," he says softly.

"It's no big deal," Justin says. "She probably got them from that dog we met in the park the other day. The schnauzer? When they frolic and play together, they pass them back and forth."

"Frolic? Who the fuck says frolic?"

"Brian, calm down."

"I _AM_ CALM. And Catherine can't have fleas because she has a goddamned motherfucking flea collar. And we use the fucking spray. Goddamn piece of shit schnauzer!"

Brian insists on accompanying Justin to the veterinary clinic. He pays for the most expensive treatment, books a year of follow-ups, and hires a crew of exterminators to go through the entire house to ensure that every last flea and potential flea is annihilated.

Catherine stops taking her walks at the park.

* * *

Brian collapses into bed after a long, hard day.

Murphy fucked up the Redrock Beans account, a delay that will cost thousands unless he can find a way to work the Kinney magic and repair the damage in the morning. Dinner is sitting like a lump of lard in his stomach. An hour that should have been spent fucking Justin into oblivion was instead spent chasing Catherine around the yard after she decided to see what 'garden hose' tastes like. He doesn't even want to think about how much trip to the emergency vet clinic cost, and when Catherine 'evacuates' the remaining piece of hose, he's making sure that Justin is there to deal with it.

Brian wonders if he's getting too old for all this shit. The thought makes him wince.

He slaps Justin on the ass to wake him up.

"I've been thinking," Brian says.

"Oh, what the _fuck_," Justin mumbles groggily. He'd spent the hour at the veterinary clinic alternating between calm and rational discourse and dry-heaving into one of the outside trash baskets. Poor Catherine had been stoic throughout.

"About having a kid," Brian adds.

Justin cracks open an eye and watches Brian warily. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Brian says.

"And?"

"And I've decided," Brian says, taking a deep breath, "that I really don't want one."

"Thank fucking God," Justin breathes.

 

In the next room, Catherine yips in her sleep and dreams of the following days adventures.


End file.
